Slavoj Žižek, The Fragile Absolute, Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For

Kelsey Wood (University of Arkansas at Little Rock)

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.07: French Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Kate Averis (University of Western Australia), Hugo Azerad (University of Cambridge), Patrick ffrench (King's College London), Edward Forman (University of Bristol), Akane Kawakami (Birkbeck, University of London), Siobhán McIlvanney (King's College London), Sinan Richards (King's College London), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

Domains

Cultural Studies

Dates

First circulation or publication 2000

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Commentary / criticism

Resources

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One of Slavoj Žižek’s most sustained engagements with religion is

The Fragile Absolute

. In this book, Žižek uses the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan in order to reactualize – for leftists today – the subversive, radical-emancipatory kernel of Christianity. As usual, Žižek’s approach is anything but “as usual”. This becomes clear after the first paragraph, which is addressed to Marxist materialists. In the second paragraph, in an apparent reversal, Žižek asserts that there is a direct lineage from Christianity to Marxism, and further, “the authentic Christian legacy is much too precious to be left to the fundamentalist freaks” (

Fragile

, p. 2). Moreover, Christians and Marxists should now be fighting on the same side against New Age spiritualisms. And for…

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2381 words

Citation: Wood, Kelsey. "The Fragile Absolute, Or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 June 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=23502, accessed 23 November 2024.]